Obama campaign launches first in SF: Technology campaign office

There’s no shortage of Obama volunteers in politically deep blue California, where his support is higher than elsewhere. But not every volunteer is up for slogging into a local campaign office and banging out a couple hundred rah-rah calls at a phone bank or going door-to-door and talking to strangers. Or, perhaps worse, their neighbors. (Not MY neighbors, of course, who may be reading.)

So this week, The Chronicle has learned that the Obama campaign has, for the first time, opened a new type of campaign office in San Francisco: A Technology Field Office. It is believed to be the first such type of campaign office for a presidential campaign.

“We learned from 2008 that using the talents and skills of our supporters was a key to building the most effective organization,” said Obama campaign deputy press secretary Katie Hogan. “We’re taking the next step by providing tools and space for supporters in the technology community to help the campaign extend our current tools like BarackObama.com and our mobile applications.”

Locating the first such office in San Francisco, being the cradle of new tech that it is, was a natural.

So instead of cold-calling independents, a techie who wants to help Team O can come in and help develop something new for the website, etc. There’s only one paid staffer currently in SF for the Tech Field Office and Team O isn’t sure how this office will evolve. Maybe they’ll host mini-hackathons to develop new campaign apps. Maybe it will be something else. They’re open to new possibilities.

If it works here, though, the campaign is ready to launch similar Tech posts elsewhere. If you want to get involved, contact techvolunteers@barackobama.com.